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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29220693">This Moment, Right Here</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterAndLittleBrunettes/pseuds/WinterAndLittleBrunettes'>WinterAndLittleBrunettes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Voltron: Legendary Defender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Boys In Love, Feelings, Feelings Realization, Feels, Literal Sleeping Together, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Sleeping Together, Soft Keith/Lance (Voltron)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 07:35:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,432</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29220693</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterAndLittleBrunettes/pseuds/WinterAndLittleBrunettes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Recently together, Lance and Keith spend their first night together in the same bed, existing in each other's space. While Keith sleeps blissfully unaware, Lance is laying awake, freaking out about if he loves Keith as much as he so obviously loves him. Was the rivalry only pining in disguise?</p><p>But when Keith has a nightmare, Lance pulls him from harm to assure him that he's there for him with all the messy, complicated feelings he's holding inside.</p><p>A post s8 fic in light of all the hate going around.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Keith/Lance (Voltron)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>159</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Just some pretty nice fics</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>This Moment, Right Here</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroLatte/gifts">AstroLatte</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello my loves! My dear new friend Astro requested I write a fic where Lance is struggling with all of feelings he has for Keith when it's so obvious that Keith has been feeling those feelings longer and arguably stronger... And I had a blast with it! Klance is and will forevermore be my jam (KICK!) and you guys can always count on me to deliver good shit for these boys &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h1>This Moment, Right Here</h1><p> </p><p>In the quiet of his bedroom, Lance laid awake, staring at the ceiling and counting each deep, slow breath Keith made in the bed beside him.</p><p> </p><p>Newly boyfriends, this was the first time they shared a bed together, and Lance was hyper aware of every shift, breath and snore his boyfriend made not four inches from him, oblivious to the turmoil wreaking havoc inside his head.</p><p> </p><p>He knew of Keith’s affection for him; it seemed everyone in the entire universe knew how much Keith liked Lance long before the man of Keith’s affections did. Or maybe he always knew, but buried it down deep inside, never to see the light of day, right next to his own feelings for one Keith Kogane.</p><p> </p><p>But once he’d dusted the cobwebs off of that important box and brought it out into the light, there was no denying that Lance felt the same way Keith did. Love, so simple and complex, a complete juxtaposition of itself. How did it manage to be the easiest and hardest thing Lance had to do? Loving Keith was easy, but admitting it to himself was hard.</p><p> </p><p>Was all that rivalry shit just pining in disguise? He wasn’t sure. At one point, maybe their rivalry was real <em> (or at least his end of it was), </em> but somewhere along the way it shifted into something <em> more, </em> something difficult to get a grasp on and all the more precious. Pinpointing the exact moment was hard, but the first time Lance looked at Keith and thought “I love that man” was as easy as breathing.</p><p> </p><p>The hard part was denying it, and he couldn’t deny it any longer without irreparably hurting himself or his love in the process.</p><p> </p><p>So after many nights of careful self-reflection, he came to the decision that they needed to do something about this, the deep chasm of feelings between them. And after a nerve-wracking conversation where Lance laid his emotions bare on the table, he ended up with a boyfriend who wanted to be with him just as much as he did.</p><p> </p><p>Which was how they ended up here together, sleeping next to each other in Lance’s too-big bed.</p><p> </p><p>Or maybe it was just right, with the right person next to him.</p><p> </p><p>He let his head fall to the side to watch Keith while he slept. On one hand he knew it’d be creepy if Keith woke up and found him staring, but even knowing that, he couldn’t stop. He was content to watch as Keith’s chest rose and fell with each breath he took, the way his eyelashes fluttered as he dreamt, how his lips pursed around each snore.</p><p> </p><p>The soft light from the mermaid nightlight cast faint shadows down Keith’s face, highlighting the swoop of his cupid’s bow and the sharp line of his jaw. He longed to reach out and run his fingers along the strong line of his nose, feel his brow along his knuckles, and taste him at the seam of his lips, but he didn’t dare do that in fear of disturbing the moment. </p><p> </p><p>With care not to disturb his boyfriend, he shifted so he was laying on his side, free to look unabashedly at him while his mind wandered.</p><p> </p><p>Sharing a bed with someone who wasn’t his siblings <em> (or Hunk) </em> meant a lot to him. He’d never shared a bed with a partner before, partially in fear of snoring and scaring them off, but also because he didn’t like letting someone into his space like this. It was a vulnerability, letting someone see him when all of his walls were down, when drool dribbled unattractively out of the side of his mouth or his hair stuck up at crazy angles from all the travelling he did in his sleep.</p><p> </p><p>He’d never felt comfortable enough to ask someone to spend the night. <em> Never. </em></p><p> </p><p>Did this mean as much to Keith? Did he too wrestle with the possibility of being rejected after being seen at his most natural and vulnerable?</p><p> </p><p>Not able to come up with the answer, he just laid there and watched as Keith’s brow pinched and his nose crinkled a little as whatever dreams he was dreaming shifted.</p><p> </p><p>Lance watched as Keith’s face slipped from relaxed to something more restless, like whatever he was seeing in his dream pained him. Unsure of what to do, he laid there for a few minutes, carefully watching Keith’s face as he slept, until his eyes shut tighter against the onslaught of the bad dream.</p><p> </p><p>He longed to reach out and pull him from the nightmare, soothe him until the lingering tendrils of the plaguing thoughts disappeared entirely, but he wasn’t sure if he should do that. Was Keith the kind of man who liked to be coddled after a nightmare? Or did he prefer to suffer in silence, soldiering on like nothing ever phased him?</p><p> </p><p>Conflicting thoughts plagued him until he saw tears threatening to spill from Keith’s eyes. Without any further thought, he pulled Keith to his chest and ran a soothing hand up and down the length of his back. “Keith? Keith, baby, wake up,” he urged gently. “You’re having a bad dream.”</p><p> </p><p>It took a few long moments, but when Keith blinked his eyes open, tears clung to his lashes. It took him a few moments to realize where he was and what was happening, but when he did, he let a long breath whistle out through his lips and tried to inconspicuously wipe the tears from his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” Lance said gently, thumbing the dampness away from beneath Keith’s eyes, “are you okay?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” Keith assured weakly, shifting to move up and off of Lance. “Yeah… Sorry for waking you.”</p><p> </p><p>“I wasn’t sleeping yet,” Lance disagreed, holding fast so Keith couldn’t escape. “Was too busy thinkin’.”</p><p> </p><p>Keith’s head tilted to the side curiously. “Oh? What were you thinkin’ ‘bout?”</p><p> </p><p>“I just,” Lance started, but quickly found himself unable to say the words on his tongue. He’d been holding them in for so long that it was hard to let them go. Floodgates and all that. “I dunno,” he dismissed, letting a huff of humourless laughter escape his chest to relieve some of the pressure.</p><p> </p><p>“What?” Keith asked, looking so damn earnest despite the sleep lingering in his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Somehow, that of all things made Lance want to tell him everything. The sleep ruffled vulnerability from someone so usually in complete control of anything and everything around him was so humanizing and humbling that the words came tumbling out of Lance’s mouth before he had time to regret them:</p><p> </p><p>“I just -- <em> God, </em> Keith, you have no idea how much I care about you,” he rambled. “When I was watching you sleep here beside me in my bed, I couldn’t stop thinking about how amazing this is, y’know? You’re here with me, being vulnerable and open and cute and I just -- I don’t know how to handle that?” He raked a hand through his hair, trying to get a handle on everything. “I’m so in love with you that I don’t know how to keep it all inside anymore. I’d do <em> anything </em>to protect you, you know that?”</p><p> </p><p>All Keith could do was smile at Lance’s ramblings, as if they pleased him somehow. “What?” Lance asked suspiciously.</p><p> </p><p>“I love you, too,” Keith replied, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. A yawn overtook him then, and his head drooped forwards until it met Lance’s chest. Lance gaped, unable to utter a single word while Keith fell right back asleep on top of Lance like nothing happened.</p><p> </p><p>Lance, meanwhile, was having some issues, specifically, with his brain looping around the whole <em> ‘Keith said he loved me too’ </em> thing.</p><p> </p><p>And then, complete and utter disbelief that Keith could just fall asleep after confessing like it was no big deal, because <em> what the fuck? </em> It was very much a big deal??</p><p> </p><p>Unless Keith had known it for a long time… That it was a fact so ingrained in his being that releasing it out into the open like this was… Like a breath of fresh air, or a weight off of his chest.</p><p> </p><p>Lance wasn’t sure if that made him feel more at ease or more conflicted. His head was basically a fuzzy old television screen now, overwhelmed and overtired in the face of all this.</p><p> </p><p>Deciding that thinking about <em> that </em> was a problem for a future-him, he settled back into his pillow, relishing in the weight settled on his chest, and let himself drift off to sleep.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Feel free to follow me on other social media platforms! You can find me on <a href="http://winter-and-little-brunettes.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/winternbrunett5">twitter</a>, and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/winterandlittlebrunettes/">instagram</a>! I usually post updates about my fics, so follow me to keep up to date with my writing!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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